Sunday, September 03, 2006

Finishing Day turned into Finishing, um...

Finishing Some-Period-of-Time, culminating this week in an actual finished object.It's a vest for the Fool, which I began last fall, when we were at a contra dance weekend in Lansing, Mich. We slipped off from the dance long enough to go to Threadbear, which is such a cool yarn shop that we were both a little overwhelmed and I couldn't hardly hold myself together except to pick out yarn for this vest (Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed).

When I thought I might like to knit this, I showed the Fool the photo, in Family Circle Easy Knits or something like that (It took so long to knit this thing that all I have is the photocopied pages, no title information available), and he looked at the vest, which was knit in a tweedy beige yarn."I like it," he said.I was cautious."What, exactly, do you like about it?" I asked. "The color, the pattern, what?""I like the buttons," he said."The buttons?""They're nice and brown and round."

Eventually, I got him to admit he liked the pattern, too, and when he saw this yarn, he decided he liked that, too.The only thing left was to make sure it had nice brown round buttons when I was finished, so this morning, I found these at Vogue Fabrics in Chicago. I waffled at first, between these and some nondescript plastic ones, like on every camel trenchcoat in the world, but finally went with the wooden ones. I like the way they feel in my hand, and I really, really dig the subtle crescent moon.

Here's a fuzzy closeup of the cable. The way the pattern showed it, the cables continued up over the shoulders and down the back.The way I knitted it? Not so much, unfortunately. That's what happens when there's a lot of time between starting a project and finishing it -- things go wrong.

As long as we're showing off FOs around here ... couple pairs of socks, naturally.

These were a disaster. Some kind of twisted rib in the cuff, but look ... they match. Perfectly. I didn't try to do that at all, but here they are. I used my traditional knitting method with self-striping yarn and everything - I knitted one sock, then I finished it, then I took the yarn and knitted the second sock, and this is what I get. Twin socks. Sigh. Well, the Fool will have to live with it.

These were from that Knitty pattern, and I knit them in Socks That Rock - Emerald Isle, if I remember right.That is some cool yarn. There's another skein in the basket right now, and if I hadn't promised the Fool the joys of knitting that hand-dyed goodness, I'd be planning another pair.

Laurie: Yeah, I've got no idea half the time what he thinks of a particular piece of clothing. Generally, if he shakes his head and says, "There's ... a lot going on there," it either means he hates the color, the style or the material it's made out of.Cargo pants, for example, seem to totally overwhelm him.